All Chapters of The Son-in-Law Contract: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
23 chapters
The Foundation of Lies
The approach to London was endless and the highway pierced a gray horizon that never appeared to shift. The lights of the city appeared gradually, misty glimpses, rickety glass towers thrusting their heads through the clouds like silent spectators. As they drew nearer clouds poured heavier, the drops against the window were more sharp, every mile brought the air of the car nearer together.Julian was in the back seat beside Lila, and the air between them was like electricity and cold. She did not look at him, and her eyes were on the streaks of rain that were crawling down the glass. This time she had her hair tied up, her coat ironed, and her silence practised. The motorist made no remark, his face being covered by the hat-brim.The silence was interrupted by Julian. "Where are we going?"The reply of Lila was mute and dispassionate. "To them.""You mean Bellgrave."She nodded once. "They called this morning. Wanted to bargain, said they. Him they meant to put the matter right.And b
The Fire in His Eyes
Lila froze. "Her who?""Your mother," he said simply. "She had been working with us much earlier than Thomas. He took her as a bride to bring him nearer to us. You didn't know?"The color was drained out of her face. "That's not true.""Oh, it's very true. It was her trust, Miss Ardmore. It all was her architecture. Your father was the front."Julian swiveled around to look at Lila. "He's lying."Elias smiled faintly. "Maybe. However, lies do not lie unless they are familiar.Lila shook her head and her voice increased. "No. My mother--she ran away, she could not take what he had become.And what do you suppose made him be it? Elias asked softly. "Love? Ambition? Or the woman who had taught him that power was the only thing that was greater than fear?Julian acted before he knew it and his hand was fisting in the collar of Elias. "You talk too much."The guards drew up their weapons in a moment, and the dots of red lasers traced all over the chest of Julian. The voice of Lila broke th
The Fire That Remains
The air smelled of burned metal and rain. London’s skyline was nothing but smoke and glass reflected in water puddles. Sirens were distant now, fading into the hum of a city pretending not to notice another building that went up in flames.Julian and Lila moved through an alley behind the Bellgrave building, their coats soaked, faces streaked with soot. Neither of them spoke; silence hung heavier than the rain.Lila stopped first, pressing a trembling hand against the wall to steady herself. “They knew we’d come. That wasn’t an ambush, Julian it was a rehearsal.”He glanced over his shoulder, checking for movement. “Then someone gave them the script.”She turned, meeting his eyes. “You think it was my mother.”Julian hesitated, his jaw tightening. “Helena knew too much. And she vanished too easily. You saw how she appeared out of nowhere. Maybe she’s not running from them maybe she’s working with them.”The accusation hung between them, sharp as broken glass.Lila shook her head slowl
The House by the Cliffs
The storm rolled over the horizon like something ancient trying to find its way home. The road to the Ardmore coast was little more than a vein of mud and gravel, and the air was thick with the taste of salt. Julian’s headlights cut through the fog, each turn of the wheel pulling him closer to the place where it had all begun.The house by the cliffs came into view just before dawn silent, skeletal, and half-consumed by the sea wind. The roof sagged inward, windows shattered, ivy crawling up the blackened stone. Helena’s words echoed in his head with every step he took: There’s a file under my name.He stopped at the broken gate, the metal cold beneath his palm. For a moment, the rain stopped, and all he could hear was the ocean below, churning against the rocks. He remembered this sound from childhood before everything burned, before his name became a weapon.Julian pushed open the front door. The hinges screamed. Inside, the air was damp, thick with mold and memory. His boots le
Where the Sea Ends
The waves hit the cliffs in slow, uneven bursts, dragging foam up the rocks before falling back into themselves. Morning sunlight bled through the mist, touching what remained of the Ardmore estate just a wound carved into stone now, nothing more than memory and salt.Julian stood alone at the edge. His coat whipped against his legs, his hair damp with rain and sweat. Every part of him ached, but not in ways pain could fix. Behind him, smoke rose from the rubble faint, silver, vanishing as the sea wind took it.He’d buried too many things in that house: his mother, his past, his name. And now, Elias Bellgrave.He thought that would be enough. It wasn’t.The sound of footsteps behind him made him turn. Lila was there, her hair tangled, her face pale but steady. She walked toward him through the fog, her boots leaving shallow prints in the mud that the tide would soon erase.“You shouldn’t have followed
Zurich...
Zurich shimmered beneath a sheet of winter rain, glass towers bending their reflections into the lake. The city was too clean, too polished, a place where power wore silence instead of gold. Julian stepped off the train with nothing but a worn leather bag and the ghost of Helena’s voice in his mind One last fire.He moved like a man who’d done this before: unnoticed, uninvited, unafraid. The streets smelled of coffee and old money, the kind of wealth that never dirtied its hands, only its history.He checked into a small inn off Bahnhofstrasse under a new name Daniel Kade. The woman at the counter smiled politely. “Business or pleasure, sir?”“Neither,” he said. “Just passing through.”His room overlooked the river. From the window, he could see the spire of the Bellgrave annex rising against the gray sky. The Foundation had moved its operations here aft
The Silence After the Fire
The hotel by Lake Zurich smelled of new rain and disinfectant. The sky was pale gray, the kind of color that didn’t belong to any season. Julian sat by the window, shirt unbuttoned, his shoulder wrapped in gauze where the glass had cut him. The city outside moved like nothing had happened trams clanging, people laughing, the world unaware that something powerful had just been erased.Lila stirred on the bed behind him, the faint rustle of sheets the only sound. She’d barely spoken since the explosion. For hours, they’d just sat there, breathing the same air, trying not to think about what came next.“Did anyone see us leave?” she asked quietly.Julian shook his head. “No one saw anything. The fire took care of it.”She sat up, her hair tumbling over her face. “And the files?”He glanced at the envelope on the table half burned, sealed with tape. “What’s left of them.
The Silence After the Fire
The hotel by Lake Zurich smelled of new rain and disinfectant. The sky was pale gray, the kind of color that didn’t belong to any season. Julian sat by the window, shirt unbuttoned, his shoulder wrapped in gauze where the glass had cut him. The city outside moved like nothing had happened trams clanging, people laughing, the world unaware that something powerful had just been erased.Lila stirred on the bed behind him, the faint rustle of sheets the only sound. She’d barely spoken since the explosion. For hours, they’d just sat there, breathing the same air, trying not to think about what came next.“Did anyone see us leave?” she asked quietly.Julian shook his head. “No one saw anything. The fire took care of it.”She sat up, her hair tumbling over her face. “And the files?”He glanced at the envelope on the table half burned, sealed with tape. “What’s left of them.
His Last Fire
The train rocked gently as it cut through the Swiss countryside, slicing between mountains and fog. Julian sat alone in the last car, his reflection in the glass faint and hollow. The morning light painted him in fragments half-shadow, half-man, like someone unfinished.Geneva waited beyond the hills, beautiful and cold, the kind of city that pretended to be innocent. Somewhere inside its steel veins, The Requiem Initiative lived Bellgrave’s last mutation, the one his mother hadn’t been able to destroy.He closed his eyes, Helena’s voice whispering from memory. “Truth doesn’t die, Julian. It just finds a new name.”He opened them again, watching the world blur by. “Then I’ll find this one,” he murmured, “and burn it too.”The city greeted him with quiet precision. Geneva was order disguised as grace mirrors and money, secrets that smiled in daylight. Julian walked the streets in a gray coat and dark gloves, blending into the calm like another ghos
Shadows that Linger
The coast of the Adriatic was like an old unfulfilled endeavour, the water a dark indigo in the afternoon sun. Miravento was a village, fastened to the cliffs, its houses built of stone, and worn with time and salt, its streets too small to be overheard. Lila had selected it as it seemed the last place on the earth, silent, unassertive, miles away on the other side of the fires which had pursued her all the way around the globe.She was sitting on the terrace of a small cafe and a cup of untouched espresso was cooling on her. The newspaper report that she had a tablet shone dimly: "Anonymous Foundation Blows Whistle over International Corruption Cartel - Billions of dollars of illicit funds recovered. The bottom motto, "From ashes, truth," looked up at her like a ghost, which she could not shake.Since Geneva it was three months. Three months later Julian disappeared into the machine he claimed. There were no calls, no messages, no indications that there was still anything in the man